That merger, along with the combining of St. Mary’s in Hudson with Resurrection Chapel in Germantown and Nativity Chapel in the Livingston hamlet of Linlithgo, was ordered by Bishop Howard Hubbard in January, following a multi-year study in the Albany Diocese. The Hudson, Germantown, and Linlithgo parishes are now known collectively as Holy Trinity Parish.
As part of the merger, the bishop required the combined parishes to take on new names and also mandated that the names in no way reflect their previous names. A thorough process in which committees in each church examined possible names and put them before a vote in each parish created a final list of three recommendations. Bishop Hubbard then had the final say on the name.
Many—if not—all of the churches had been known by the same name for decades. St. Mary’s Church in Hudson had been known by that name for more than 150 years. |
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The impressive Gothic St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Hudson —now one of three churches sharing the name Holy Trinity Parish. |
The Bishop also ordered in January the closings of approximately 20 percent of the diocese’s 165 churches, the majority of which were shuttered by the July 1 deadline. Albany Roman Catholic Diocese spokesman Ken Goldfarb told ccSCOOP this week that the church mergers and closings have “remained on schedule.”
The Reverend Winston Bath, who oversees the congregants at Holy Trinity, said the merger process was exhausting, but ultimately ended with a smooth transition. “The pastoral planning process was really exhausting. There were so many meetings and so many documents that had to be reviewed and signed,” said Bath. “Once we knew where the chips were falling, our effort to merge Hudson to Germantown [and Linlithgo] went smoothly.”
Holy Trinity Hudson Parish Office Manager Kathy Jenkins agreed. “We think we went very well. Everyone was very polite. It was a very civilized,” she told ccSCOOP.
Bath said part of the reason for the smooth transition was the fact that parishioners were relieved to have their worship sites remain open. However, not everyone ccSCOOP spoke with expressed that same relief.
A Holy Family parishioner told ccSCOOP that she remains concerned that the church will ultimately close, and a parishioner at Nativity St. Mary’s expressed a similar thought. Their concern perhaps was fanned by Bishop Hubbard’s plan last month to reassign the beloved Reverend Frank O’Connor from the two parishes to an Albany church and assign another priest to the parish. The new priest, many claimed, would be “a closer” and was viewed as someone who would be assigned to the churches with the specific task of leading congregants to go elsewhere so the diocese could cite poor attendance as a reason to close the churches.
Local church officials claimed that opposition in the churches—including multiple phone calls and letters sent to the diocese—led Bishop Hubbard to a reversal of his decision, a move they billed as “unprecedented.” Goldfarb, however, said the change in assignments—made within weeks of the announcement—was the result of a "change in circumstances" and not the desires of local Catholics to have Father O'Connor—who is approximately two years away from mandatory retirement age—remain in the Stuyvesant Falls and Stottville parishes.
Church mergers and closings are nothing new to Columbia County. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, two parish churches in Hudson—Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Mount Carmel—were closed, causing legions of Catholic faithful to protest but to no avail. Some of those communicants have since broken free of the diocese, purchasing a former restaurant on Route 9 in Greenport and recruiting their own priest who does not report to the bishop.
About a decade ago, a Catholic church in Taghkanic was closed, and its faithful were asked to attend St. John Vianney in Claverack.
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